Quantum mechanics and computer science are two of the biggest developments in the last century
in science and technology: quantum mechanics gave us the opportunity to understand nature at
the nanoscale, where the laws of physics are fundamentally different from the conventional
(classical) physics; information technologies have revolutionized our everyday lives.

Quantum computing and quantum information science bring these fields together, applying
quantum mechanics to problems in computing and communication. After Shor's 1994 discovery
of a quantum algorithm for factoring integers, which threatened the security of a
widely-used encryption method, interest in quantum information science thrived.
Other achievements of quantum information science include efficient and secure protocols
for communication and cryptography. Those protocols have already resulted in quantum
cryptography devices that are commercially available.